One could argue that Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s involvement in Spider-Man: No Way Home is one of the worst kept secrets in cinematic history, if not at the top of the list. Rumors, reports and leaked set photos spoiled that the actors would reprise their versions of Spidey long after their respective film series ended. What wasn’t known ahead of time, however, was how their Peter Parkers would be introduced into the story centered on Tom Holland’s version. As it turns out, director Jon Watts had to change Maguire and Garfield’s first scenes thanks to some astute predictions on Reddit.
Along with explaining why he dropped out of directing The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Watts opened up the work that went into bringing three Spider-Man together in Spider-Man: No Way Home while attending a panel at the Mediterrane Film Festival, moderated by Collider’s Steven Weintraub. Acknowledging that Maguire and Garfield’s Spider-Man returns had already been rumored during shooting, the filmmaker started off talking about how this portion of the script was improved with the following:
We were writing the script, and we were working on where we wanted to reveal the guys, and it always seemed like Peter’s going to be sad because Aunt May has just died, and that the portals are going to open, and the two Spider-Men are going to step out. It’s probably a rooftop somewhere. It’s all sort of hazy. You’re still trying to figure it out.
At first glance, this seems like a cool scene. Just when Tom Holland’s Peter Parker was at his lowest point, his older counterparts arrived from their universes, though their entrances are obscured so that it’s not immediately clear who they are. The problem is that Jon Watts noticed during principal photography that some fans on Reddit had already envisioned such a scene, explaining:
Then I was on Reddit, and I was looking at people who had already made fan art of, 'This is probably what it’s going to be like when the two Spider-Men get revealed.' It was on a rooftop. It was sad, two Doctor Strange portals were open and two Spider-Men are stepping out. I was like, 'Well, we can’t do that. If that’s exactly what everyone thinks we’re going to do, we absolutely can’t do that.'
Since so many people around the world saw Avengers: Endgame’s game-changing portals scene, I’m not surprised some of the more hardcore MCU fans imagined a similar moment being depicted in Spider-Man: No Way Home. Great minds think alike, after all. But Jon Watts wasn’t going to be predictable, so instead, he came up with Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire’s Peter Parkers coming through portals, in that order, at Ned’s grandma’s house. Tom Holland’s Peter still met them on a rooftop, they just accompanied Ned and MJ there instead.
The circumstances of how they came together may have changed, but ultimately Spider-Man: No Way Home fulfilled its mission to have the three cinematic Spideys join forces to battle a bunch of memorable foes. Whether we’ll ever see the Three Peters team up again remains to be seen, but we will reunite with Tom Holland’s version when the upcoming Spider-Man movie Brand New Day is released on July 31, 2026.
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